#124 What to do about rising input costs?

Hello, I am Jim Elizondo from Real Wealth Ranching. As you may know, I have been teaching classes on how to maximize your profits while improving your land the fastest

We have called it the Total Grazing Academy where we manage the Total Grazing Program, Adapted Genetics and Selection Guidelines, The Optimal calving season, and Nutrition when grazing.

All these courses have a purpose; to maximize your stocking rate while minimizing overgrazing and hay costs. This will improve your land the fastest while your profits go way up!

Why? Because nature is always striving for complexity, biodiversity, higher and higher long-lived soil organic carbon, and productivity

I bet you did not see it this way, but studying nature's processes helps us better understand how to help nature achieve this at a much lower cost. Nature wants to increase productivity per acre, it is that simple.

Now, you may say, that many parts of the country have desertified, and other parts of the country are forested and it has to do with rain, not with nature.

I have a surprise for you: an ecosystem, any ecosystem, includes plants, soil, rain of course, and the missing part: animals!

Just as important as biodiversity, insects, and rainfall distribution are animals, herbivores, predators, birds, bats, etcetera.

Did you know that each group of species has a different role in maintaining or shaping an ecosystem?

Yes, and when they go extinct for whatever reason, and no other species fill in their role, the ecosystem changes.

Desertification, and allowing the land to go back to forest, have to do with these very important species not being able to fulfill their roles.

What can we do? I mean, they are extinct and we cannot mimic their migratory habits to better manage the land.

People talk about rewilding without considering the predator effect and the migration that these megafauna did long ago and allowed them to survive lean times. This also allowed enough rest time for full recovery of the land.

Okay, that is the problem, we lost these huge herds of megafauna that helped to shape the ecosystem and it is why some environments have desertified and others have gone back to forests when they were savannas.

What we need to do to bring back the humus or long-lived soil organic carbon levels to what was there before the extinction of the megafauna is to mimic their role and function.

Happily, this is what nature is striving for, this is what nature wants help with.

Let me explain, in nature, long ago, like 40,000 years ago, there were many different herbivores and predators in huge numbers. Some of them accomplished a total graze as they were hindgut fermenters and others were ruminants.

Why is it important to specify that some herbivores were ruminants and others were hindgut fermenters? Because ruminants need better quality grass than hindgut fermenters like donkeys, zebras, elephants, rhinos, mammoths, and mastodons.

Ruminants require more protein in their diet; when we do not provide that level of protein they consume less grass and will lose weight. In nature, they would simply migrate to another location with greener grass. Now, they cannot migrate as highways, fences, and cities are in their way.

Now, for plant and soil sake, a total graze or nonselective graze is necessary, it is how nature develops forage grasses, and it's why grasses have their growth points close to the surface of the soil. After a total graze on well-recovered grasses, the regrowth will be leafier, which is what produces energy and the best daily gains or performance on ruminants

Cows, sheep, and goats are ruminants and are all we have as herbivores to manage our land and improve it with their grazing, this means we need to work to accomplish the same that ruminants with hindgut fermenters with migration were able to accomplish; the best soils in the world.

Okay, there you have it, all we need to do is mimic nature as it worked before mankind killed off the very important megafauna and their predators that molded the environment for thousands of years. Not only considering modern times, when land and environment were already very degraded compared to back then.

In my Free Masterclass: 3 Low-cost Steps to Increase your pProductivity Big Time, I explain more in detail how to do this without high-cost inputs.

In these times, it is crucial to do more with less, and we can only do that by following nature while considering basic plant physiology. Not by following outdated theories where they did not consider how long-lived soil organic carbon is created; this is what separates us from other so-called grazing gurus. You see, when they made out their theories about grazing, they thought, as it was general knowledge, that soil organic carbon was created by litter or organic matter left on the soil surface to decompose. Now we know that only creates short-lived soil organic carbon that lasts days, or months but If we want to regenerate our soil to where it is as productive as it can be without added inputs we need to create the long-lived soil organic carbon that lasts one hundred years or more. This is the type of organic carbon that has been lost in our soils worldwide: long-lived soil organic carbon, when you increase it in your soil, it starts to act as if it rained more and as if you were fertilizing but with greater grass and livestock health.

Sign up for my free masterclass: 3 low-cost steps to increase your productivity Big Time and learn what you need to maximize your profits while you improve your land the fastest.

Conclusion and Recap:

• Nature is always striving to increase productivity per acre, without added inputs, by biodiversity
• Herbivores and predators molded and sculpted the environment, creating savannas that are the most productive ecosystem to man
• Animals are a part of any environment and the lack of these animals degrades the environment, creating a desert in low rainfall areas and a forest in high rainfall areas
• Our soils, worldwide, have lost around half of their long-lived soil organic carbon whose role is to provide moisture, nutrients, and better temperatures to our soils, soil life, and forages
•  People talk about rewilding, but without migration, the herbivores cannot go to where the grass is greener in difficult times, we need to do better than allowing wild herbivores to overgraze vegetation
• Around 40,000 years ago we had a whole plethora of wild herbivores, some were ruminants and some were hindgut fermenters, along with their predators. Now, we do not have them anymore and their very important role goes unfulfilled
• If we want to increase long-lived soil organic carbon, we need to mimic what happened a long time ago
• Cows, sheep, and goats are ruminants and require higher protein diets than hindgut fermenters like donkeys, zebras, elephants, mammoths, and mastodons
• Long-lived soil organic matter is not created from litter or trampled grass as was believed when most grazing theories were formulated. Now we know that it comes from fat soil microbes bodies converted to humus by fungi. This is essential to manage your land correctly with your livestock grazing
• Join us for the free 3 Low-cost Steps to Increase your Productivity Big Time

Well, thank you all for listening, I hope you like this and are eager to attend our free masterclass on how to do more with less, 3 Low-cost Steps to Increase your Productivity Big Time and improve your land at the same time.

Thank you for listening and see you in the free masterclass.

As always, sign up for my free weekly blog at www.rwranching.com/blog and become part of our group.

May God bless you!